MAUI’S FISH
Sweet on the spacious silence the ring of the [1]Tui’s rich throat!
[2]Kauri and [2]Totara, [2]Rimu, and [2]Matai and [2]Maire,
Red-as-blood [2]Rata, and bright-as-blood [2]Pohutu-kawa,
[2]Manuka dark-ey’d, Convolvulus, Clematis star-ey’d—
The glittering of you that morning! fresh, dripping with dews of the Ocean,
New rays to the young, early sun!
The host of your [3]taua, address’d as to fight! of your lances and [4]meres of green-stone,
Bristling all suddenly upward, lustrously tossing in glory,
A green sea, high in the air!
Pull on! Pull away!
I see shining and shining below here.
Is there a Sun in the Sea? a young Sky in the water?
A Sea, deep in Sea?
Or is a great paua-shell, empty, vividly variegated,
Shadow playing with shine, blue and green in the arms of each other,
As they lie on the lap of the Sea?
Lo! it nears! it arrives! on the face of the water it floats—
Land—Ho! Land!
Yea, sparkling with freshness, audacious with newness, laughing with light,
Land! a young Land from the Sea!
A dark land, of forest; a bright land, of sky and of summits,
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